Then I make myself pull back.
We are both breathing hard, the cold air working against the heat between us. I can feel her pulse under my hands where they rest at her jaw. Fast. Certain.
I need to know she is here. That this is her choosing, not the ridge or the rawness of the moment or the wide-open sky. Her. Just her.
"Say the word and I stop." The words between us, low and plain.
She pulls at my collar. Deliberate. Drawing me in with the same certainty she kissed me with.
"Maya." I stay where I am.
She looks up at me. Grey-green eyes, direct, completely without ambiguity.
"I want this." A breath. "I want you."
The last of it goes.
I bring my mouth back to hers and this time I don't measure it. I press my tongue to her lips and she opens for me with a gasp. I taste the warmth of her mouth, her tongue moving against mine, and I go still for one beat with the full weight of what is happening.
She is choosing me.
On this ridge, after everything that broke her open, she turned and she chose. That knowledge moves through me slower than the hunger but it goes deeper, settles into a place I have not let anything reach in a long time.
I pull her harder against me. She is flush against my body and I am fully hard against her belly. I have not wanted anything with this kind of pull in longer than I can think.
I press us together as close as the layers between us allow. The cold has stopped registering. Only her. Only the heat building between our bodies where they meet.
Her hands move across my shoulders, down my back, finding the shape of me through the jacket. Even through the fabric the touch draws me tighter against her. I want her hands on my skin. I want mine on hers. I have enough left in me to know we are on a ridge in the open air. I don't have enough left to care.
I slide my hands down the back of her thighs. She understands immediately, her legs coming up and wrapping around my waist as I lift her, and then she is straddling me, arms locked around my neck, her face level with mine, her eyes dark and decided.
Three steps to the cedar at the edge of the ridge. Massive, old, the bark rough under my palm as I press her back against it. I pin her there with the weight of my hips, both hands free. She is held. She is safe. She is going nowhere.
I kiss her mouth. Her jaw. The line of her throat down to the hollow of her collarbone. She tips her head back against the bark and I feel her swallow under my lips, feel the specific vulnerability of a throat offered freely. Something tightens low in my gut that is not gentle.
I unzip her jacket. Work my hand under both layers at the hem, finding the skin of her stomach. She pulls in a sharp breath at the contact, my hand cold against her, her impossibly soft skin.
I find the underwire of her bra. Pull both cups down at once and her breasts fall free, pale and flushed in the mountain air, nipples drawn tight. I look at her against the cedar. The rough dark bark behind her, the light catching the curve of her, the color climbing her throat.
I lower my head and take one nipple into my mouth. She makes a sound I feel the full length of my spine. I roll my tongue over it, graze with my teeth, pull with deliberate pressure. She arches against the cedar, her hips rolling forward into mine, her hands going into my hair.
I move to the other. Same attention. Same patience. She is moving in my arms, a restless involuntary roll of her hips she cannot stop, and the sound she makes nearly finishes my composure entirely.
"Please." The word comes out unsteady. "Reid."
"I've got you." My mouth at the curve of her breast, my hand working the other nipple between my fingers. "Sweetheart. I've got you."
I keep my mouth where it is and slide my free hand down between us. Flat of her stomach. Waistband. The zipper, slow, deliberate. My hand slides inside.
She is wet. The heat of her immediate against my fingers, slick and certain. I press my face to the side of her neck and hold.
"Christ." The word comes out against her skin. "You wet like that for me?"
"Yes." No hesitation. "Yes. All of it."
I close my eyes. The heat of her on my hand, the salt of her throat under my mouth, the way her hips have already started moving against my fingers. Every nerve I own is pulling toward the center of her and the only thing keeping me from losing myself against this tree like a man with no blood left in his brain is years of practiced discipline, which is eroding by the second.
I breathe. I hold.
